Old-stock Quebecers can learn a thing or two from minorities and new immigrants, especially when it comes to education, Coalition Avenir Québec leader...

Blatant xenophobia or a fevered defence of old-stock Quebec values? On radio talk shows, Twitter and Facebook and campaign buses, the battle over secular values, reasonable accommodation and who belongs raged Wednesday, overshadowing talk of the economy and the day’s election goodies.

Indeed, no sooner had Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois demanded an apology from Saguenay Mayor Jean Tremblay for his comments about PQ candidate Djemila Benhabib, than Trois Rivières Mayor Yves Lévesque jumped into the fray, saying Tremblay was just saying what people are quietly thinking: that many minorities are forcing them to give up their traditions.

Lévesque said he and other PQ supporters were disappointed that Benhabib had been parachuted into their riding.

Marois defended Benhabib as “being integrated into Quebec society” and demanded an apology from Tremblay for his “unacceptable” and “deplorable” comments, while at the same time trying to clarify the party’s plan for a secular charter. The uproar drowned out her staged announcement at a St. Jérôme research centre for electric cars, where she promised to extend the métro blue line, complete the east commuter train line to Mascouche before 2014 and add 300 kilometres of bus and carpooling lanes.

In an interview with radio host Paul Arcand on Wednesday, Tremblay had slammed Benhabib for not supporting the Catholic crucifix in the National Assembly, something her party wants to maintain while banning other religious symbols in public life.

“What shocks me, is to see us, the gentle French-Canadians, being told how to behave by someone from Algeria whose name we can’t even pronounce,” Tremblay said.

Told that Benhabib has been in Quebec 15 years, Tremblay laid out the perceived threat posed by “them.”

“They are quietly, and with nice language, eating away (at our traditions),” Tremblay said. “They quietly start by removing the prayer in city hall, then they’ll remove our religious objects, then they’ll take away the crosses in cities and after that they’ll go into the schools ...

“They’ll do away with our religion and culture everywhere, and you won’t notice.”

During a campaign stop in Magog, Liberal leader Jean Charest said, “All I can tell you is that, in Quebec, we are all equals.”

As far as he’s concerned, Charest said the crucifix belongs on the wall of the National Assembly.

“It’s an important part of our history. We’re not going to rewrite history (to suggest) that the church has not played an important role in Quebec society.”

Charest said that his government has already addressed issues pertaining to religious garb worn by public servants.

“We presented a bill, Bill 94, and what does that law say? It affirms that when you give or receive services from the government of Quebec, it is done with face uncovered,” Charest said, while sidestepping the PQ call for a prohibition on other religious symbols, such as the kippah, turban and hijab.

The PQ opposed Bill 94 when it was tabled in March, 2010, suggesting it did not go far enough. The legislation has not yet passed.

In Montmagny, Coalition Avenir Québec leader François Legault called on the mayor of Saguenay to apologize to Benhabib.

“Mr. Tremblay is out of control,” Legault said, noting Tremblay complained he couldn’t pronounce her name and referred to Muslims condescendingly as “those people.”

“I think she is a Quebecer and she does not deserve this,” Legault said of Benhabib, who was born in Ukraine of a Greek Cypriot mother and an Algerian father, but grew up in Algeria.

Defending the PQ proposal for a charter of secularism in a radio interview with Arcand, Benhabib said the law would ban ostentatious religious signs, such as the Jewish kippah, the Muslim niqab and hijab and large crosses, if they are used in an “exaggerated way,” but that Christmas trees would be allowed.

Arcand interviewed Tremblay right after speaking to Benhabib. The mayor, who has defied Quebec’s human-rights commission and the human-rights tribunal by continuing to open city council meetings with a prayer, said he was “shocked” that “we will be dictated to on how we respect our culture by someone who comes from Algeria.”

Legault said he favours the crucifix in the National Assembly as an expression of “our heritage.” But said he thinks the proposed PQ charter goes too far in banning the wearing of religious symbols by public employees.

Salam Elmenyawi, president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, said his organization is shocked to see such archaic ideas of the past being resurrected. “It’s alarming to see a mainstream party like the PQ going this way and sowing the seeds of divisiveness.”

He said Benhabib, a Muslim who decries Islam, is being used by the PQ to “advance their own bigoted interests and enforce negative stereotypes. They think that if they bring in a Muslim woman to attack Muslim women, it’s not bigoted.”

The council sent out a statement Wednesday urging all Quebecers to reject the PQ’s “xenophobic” views. “I’m at a loss, but it seems we have to hold our nose and vote Liberal,” Elmenyawi said.

Asked if it meant a Jew wearing a kippah or a Sikh wearing a turban could be excluded from running for public office, Marois said the more the rules are clarified the better potential immigrants to the province will be able to decide if Quebec is for them.

“They could work in a government institution without being able to wear ostentatious symbols,” she said.

Marois said the charter would take precedence over both the Quebec and Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, even though freedom of religious expression is enshrined in both and legal experts have said it would never survive a court challenge.

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